Government to review waste handling

The Budget has been and gone. The focus was on debt reduction, a review of costs and questioning about how and where further savings maybe generated. Overall an exercise which organisations of all types and sizes will be familiar with.

The Coalition published ‘Our programme for government’ and the Coalition’s Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman gave a key note speech at this year’s Futuresource event. What can we learn from these two sources that may give an indication of the Coalition’s thinking about the handling of commercial waste and any additional cost or cash incentive to organisations?

First, the Coalition document; out of eighteen bullet points under Environment, Food and Rural Affairs one alludes to waste. This says that the government will work towards a ‘zero waste’ economy and encourage councils to reward people for recycling.

Caroline Spelman expanded on this brief observation in her speech when she said: The Department of Energy & Climate Change will be encouraged to send an increased volume of biodegradable waste through anaerobic digestion. The reference to ‘zero waste’ is explained as an attitude whereby society fully values all resources with the aim that in time the minimum volume possible is sent to landfill.

Making this speech in a business setting, it was perhaps a surprise that most of its content focussed on consumers and households, or was it? The emphasis was about communicating with people and explaining to them what happened to their waste once it had been collected. Examples of initiatives taken by local authorities were cited and stress was placed on the Coalition’s first announcement; ‘the rejection of the very concept of bin taxes’.

Businesses did feature, however perhaps more as a side comment and closely tied to consumer behaviour. Manufacturers and businesses were asked to redouble their efforts to drive down waste generated by production processes and packaging; to quote on the latter ‘some of which is, if we’re honest, actually marketing material’.

Specific reference to organisations were to the effect that landfill is expensive and is  a double burden when recyclable materials were disposed of by that route. Whilst no figures were quoted Caroline Spelman did say that more waste was generated by organisations than by households. For households we are told that they now recycle over 38% whilst ten years ago it was 9% and waste to landfill has reduced by over a third since 2001 with recycling from green waste increasing by 13% in the past decade.

Can we assume that incentives to recycle that are clearly on the agenda for households will be extended to organisations? Perhaps, but not yet.

Caroline Spelman took the opportunity of this platform to announce ‘we (the Coalition) are starting a review of all existing waste policies. It will be a fundamental review. It will look at every aspect of waste policy and waste management delivery including household and business waste and recycling services. The results will be used to ensure that we are ready and able to deliver on our ambitions for a zero waste economy.’

The aim is to produce preliminary findings by Spring 2011.